At a time when the Modi-led Government is leaving no stone unturned to promote country’s alternative traditional medicinal system, ayurveda medical practitioners in the country have accused National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) of step-motherly treatment.
NABH is a constituent board of Quality Council of India (QCI), set up to establish and operate accreditation programme for healthcare organisations. The NABH accredited hospitals in allopathic and ayush are listed on the Government’s website too ensuring their global reach.
Under the umbrella of the Private Ayurvedic Medical Practitioners Association, (PAMPA), the small players in the sector have alleged that the norms set by the NABH were not suitable for ensuring quality standards of ayurvedic healthcare sector which was preventing them from getting accreditation certificates and hence hampering their growth. Ayurveda Hospital Managem-ent’s Association (AHMA) too has raised similar points.
Alleging that the norms were not rationalised, they have now called for reconstitution of the NABH with better representation from their sector or the Government take its control.
In fact, the Ayush Ministry’s repeated reminders to the NABH to look into the demand of the Ayurveda hospitals have fell on the deaf ears.
In a letter to the Union Health Ministry, the AMPA has accused the NABH (Ayush) of failing to understand the ground reality of the Ayush sector in the country since they are not doing proper consultation with associations in concerned sectors.
No wonder, said Dr PS Narayanankutty, president PAMPA, in last seven years since the NABH initiated quality test in Ayush sector, just 20 such hospitals have got NABH accreditation. “It is clear the institution is not serving the purpose of quality assurance of Ayush Healthcare sector,” he added.
The Association pointed out that while for allopathic hospitals with less than 50 beds, NABH has created a separate category itself called Small Health Care Organisations (SHCO) where a hospital with up to 49 beds have to satisfy less parameters, there was no such category for the Ayush sector despite several representations.
Moreover, such SHCO have to pay just Rs 1,000 as application fee and Rs 10,000 as annual fee for entry level while even the small scale hospitals in ayush sector have to shell out Rs 20,00 as fee and Rs 60,000 as annual fee which has prevented many ayurveda hospitals from applying for NABH accreditation, said Dr Babykrishnan of AHMA.
Even though most of the ayurveda hospitals in the country are having less than 650 beds, NABH has not introduced SHCO category and entry level accreditation in ayurveda sector, said.